What it feels like
by Lula2
Summary: A 97 Seconds postep. House POV. I don't own these people, I just borrow them every once in a while. HouseCameron


What it Feels Like

A post-ep to _97 Seconds_, because I'm in denial.

Obviously I don't own these people. I'm just borrowing them for a bit.

"I like him better like this. Don't you?" I want to say no, I want to tell her that I hate that insolent asshole. I want to wipe that conceited little smiled off her face, with a kiss or a slap or a pair of hurtful words. I want to tell her that I have never despised anyone more than I despise Chase at this very moment. Of course, I could hide my hatred behind righteous indignation. After all, he broke hospital protocol. Worse than that, he broke my protocol. The problem is that Cameron has never been stupid. She has been a pushover and sickeningly sweet most of the time, but she is not stupid. While I will never admit it to anyone, least of all to her, I do consider Chase's newly acquired backbone to be a vast improvement over his previously invertebrate state of total mindless obeisance. Even of that obeisance was to me. No matter what I say, she'll know otherwise.

Usually, I don't spend too much time thinking about that insipid little wallaby. But since our exchange in the hospital lobby, any time I go over the episode in my mind I tell myself that if anyone is responsible for effecting this change in the wombat, it is I and I alone. By firing him, I did him the greatest service I have done to anyone short of saving their lives. Thanks to me he had to strike out on his own, he had to prove himself. Thanks to me, he got Cameron.

A day later, I see her dip into the cafeteria, and despite the fact that I just finished eating Wilson's lunch, I follow her inside.

"So, still enjoying the wolf-whistles at the construction site, blondie?" I mentally will her to get the fries. She does.

"I thought you liked my hooker hair."

"I did when I thought you did it to look like a hooker. But matching your boyfriend, trying to look good in the pictures, well, that's just sad. Senior prom matching tuxedo and dress sad."

"So you saw the picture of us at the fundraiser? Chase clipped it out of the newspaper." She finishes paying for her lunch and I follow her to an empty table.

"You colored your hair to advertise you are a couple, to look like him. You have this idea of the golden couple, and now you embody it."

"Golden couple, huh?" I am started to get annoyed. There used to be a time when I had the capacity to shift her center with a handful of words. Now she just stands there, a half-smile on her face, fondly amused by me.

"Face it, Cameron. It's only a matter of time."

"A matter of time? Until what?" Her apparent lack of curiosity tells me that she knows I am going to tell her exactly what I think without her prodding me to continue. Three years as my subordinate: she knows me well. I try to create some suspense by grabbing a handful of fries and shoving one at a time in my mouth. She is unfazed, patiently waiting. She knows I _want _to tell her.

"You did it, you fixed him. And now what?"

"He never needed fixing." Again, that calm, little smile.

"Right. He spent months trying to get you invested in the relationship, to no avail. You're saying it's just coincidence that you became his girlfriend the day I fired him? The very day?" I grab a cherry tomato out of her salad to emphasize my point.

"I realized I didn't want to lose him."

"You realized he got hurt. You realized he needed you. The second I fired him, he became a pathetic, little bird with a broken wing. You just had to care for him and nurse him back to health."

She stops rooting around her salad and makes eye contact. Despite my prodding, she remains unruffled. "I see. So this is just my pattern. I couldn't help myself. And now that he is fixed, you think I won't love him anymore."

"You love him?"

"Yes." I give her one of my most penetrating looks, but she doesn't fold. She doesn't confront my gaze either, just kind of holds it steadily, even sweetly. It's time for some harsh truths for the little girl.

"He's grateful to you. And he likes having a beautiful girlfriend to show off at gala events and to fuck at night. But he doesn't need you anymore. And the second that sinks into your brain, you'll lose interest. You don't love him. You just love playing your little martyr role."

"St. Cameron, patron saint of the damaged losers? How very egotistical of me." She's gone back to her salad, but I'm not sure it's in defeat.

"Whatever gets you off."

"Chase gets me off."

It isn't often that I am rendered speechless. But the thought of thin, fragile Cameron crashing and falling to pieces in my arms, not Chase's, demands my undivided attention.

"I just don't know why you won't just let me have this, House."

"Because it's not real. Because you're deluding yourself!"

"So? What does it matter to you? You say my feelings for Chase aren't real. Well, then what is real? The puzzles you solve at work?" She's struggling with the yogurt lid, like we are chatting about the weather, like none of this is even scratching her surface.

"Those puzzles save lives." Did I really just say that? Out loud?

"You don't care about the patients' lives. You just care about solving your puzzle and being right. You only care about proving to everyone that you are better, smarter than everyone else. Because once you do that, you can just ignore everyone else's feelings." She puts her yogurt down for a moment and looks at me with that same steady gaze. "Well, I may not be as smart as you, but I am not your inferior."

"Let me guess. Because you care?"

"No. Because at the end of the day, you are just a coward, and I'm not."

"Cameron, resorting to name-calling? I am appalled. If you were an 18th century French man I'd call for pistols at dawn."

"Joke all you like. The better to keep reality at bay, right? Oh, wait I forgot. For you, it's realism at all costs. How about this: how you feel for me is real."

Ah, at last, some familiar terrain. I've got her on the ropes. "Where have I heard this before? A very special episode of the OC? No, wait, no, it was you!"

"The way your hand shook when you gave me that corsage, that was real."

"I was embarrassed at the level of lameness involved in fulfilling your blackmail."

She leans in, and lowers her voice. "The way your cock hardened when we kissed, that was real."

I lean forward, our faces so close anyone in this cafeteria will think we are about to kiss. "My cock hardens when I think of Carmen Electra. Are you saying she's the real thing too?"

"The way you kissed back, that was real. You hesitated at first, but then you…" She sits back and I can taste victory.

"Feeling a little embarrassed, Doctor Cameron?"

"It was more than a kiss." I expected her to blush, but instead she fixed my eye with hers. "You tasted me. And there was passion, but there was- I don't know- a tenderness? When your tongue touched mine. A sense of gratitude? After you grabbed my hand, you kept your mouth pressed to mine for one more second, like you didn't really want the kiss to end. And I felt it too." She sits back and demurely chews on a fry.

I pause for a second, because that kiss, which I have relived in my mind every day since the day it happened, was everything she said. But it won't do to let her to think so. "Of course I was grateful. I was finally getting some without having to reach for my wallet first. That makes any kiss a red-letter day." I say it loudly enough to ensure it will be part of the gossip at the nurses' station tonight.

"You keep hedging, wanting to open the door and walk out instead of having a discussion about feelings. But you haven't walked out yet, because you miss me, because you don't want to walk away from me. That is real, House. And I'm not the one running away from it. You have convinced yourself that I don't really love you, that what I feel for you isn't real, but that is just an excuse so you don't have to deal with the very real feelings you have for me."

At three am, I will probably wake up with the perfect comeback to little rant. It will be pithy, sarcastic and more than a little offensive. It will put her squarely in her place and leave her without a doubt as to my real feelings, as she calls them. Maybe it will make her cry a little. It will be the perfect line to deliver as I turn and walk away triumphantly. Or as triumphantly as a man with a cane can walk away.

But right now, I am struggling for words that don't sound stupid and false. She beats me to the punch.

"I didn't fix Chase. And I would never have tried to fix you. But sometimes, when the person you love is by your side- you find strength to heal yourself."

And there it is. Love, strength to heal yourself? The corniest sentence ever uttered in my presence. A million comebacks race through my head, but before I utter a single one, Cameron gathers her things and stands up. "We should do this again sometime. I like watching you eat my fries." I let her leave.

The conversation rankles, however. For days afterward, phrases pop in and out of my mind at random times. The way she described the kiss, the way she accused me of being a coward, the way she said she would never have tried to fix me. The way I believed her.

"I need a ride", I say, as I lean on the hood of her car.

That goddamn little smile appears again. It irks me. A lot. "Right. Who drove your car back to your apartment?" I didn't expect to fool her.

"The eager to please one." She doesn't ask any more questions. We get in the car, and for some reason, it's not weird. She puts on her seatbelt, and for a few minutes we sit in companionable silence, which is a phrase I had never thought to use. Ever. She must know there's something I want to talk about, but she gives no indication of impatience. We are halfway to my apartment before I speak.

"How's it going, then?"

"What." Not a question.

"Chase's love helping you heal yourself." I intended my words to drip with sarcasm, but somehow everything sounded a little earnest and out of character. I don't want to look at her, worried that I will see that little smile hovering about her face.

"You think I'm damaged." She says it calmly, without registering any emotion. Maybe she doesn't care about my opinions anymore. Maybe she's just giving a ride home to a pathetic old man she used to work for. Maybe she really is content with Chase and their white-picket fence future. Maybe I'm being ridiculous.

"I think you are with a man you don't love. And I know you are not happy." I can't help myself. I don't know why I keep pushing this, but it seems to be the only way to push her off center, even if it means I'm out of balance myself.

She says nothing. The hands on the steering wheel turn pale. The eyelashes quiver almost imperceptibly, but still she says nothing. She is holding her breath. We drive for a couple of blocks before she pauses at a stop sign. Cars go by us. The street is empty, and still, she doesn't move. I have always been able to read her, but she is shuttered against me now, weighing something of import and I can only wait for her words.

Finally, they come. "If I'm not happy, it's because the person I love isn't happy."

Something swells against my lungs, against my ribcage. I can't get a hold of my bitterness; it flutters somewhere I cannot reach. A voice that must be mine but doesn't sound like me says, "He's happy now."

"I know." We have reached my street, but instead of turning, she keeps going straight. For a brief moment, everything seems very simple, and we have this car and she's driving and I am just sitting next to her and the houses go by, and then the trees, until all there is is a small country road, and twilight.

We drive for hours. Her phone rings, but she turns it off. We drive on. I don't know where we are and I'm pretty sure she doesn't either. We are suspended. We are nowhere near reality, and something about this should bother me. I'm not usually one for delusions, but we are driving and the night closes in and we haven't said a word but she smells faintly of wildflowers. We stop at a roadside diner for food and gas, and as we sit facing each other in the booth, I realize that this is the first time we have looked at each other. She seems transformed, and I think to myself that this is it, this is what Cameron looks like when she's happy. I have seen her hopeful and crushed and grateful, but never before have I seen Cameron happy. All I did was ride in a car with her, without speaking. An involuntary smile creeps into my face as I watch her. I stop its progress.

"It doesn't take much to make you happy. Does it?"

"No one else has managed it so far. So I guess it must be very, very hard. However did you do it?"

"I don't know." And just like that, I know it's over, this is all we get. "And I don't know how to keep it up. I'm not the guy who makes other people happy." I'm waiting for her to fade, for her happiness to burst; I'm ready for the crushed look I have seen on her face before. It doesn't come.

"You can make me happy, even if you feel the need to punish me or yourself afterwards. Listen, I know. Your liver is going to fail sooner or later, or your kidneys, or God knows what organ you're killing with your Vicodin. You are going to be angry and in pain, and sometimes you'll take it out on me. You are going to be a rotten bastard to my friends and to my family. You won't want kids and you probably won't marry me. Ever. You are going to get bored of me and break up with me. You're definitely going to hurt me over and over again. Is there anything I'm missing?"

"Isn't that enough?"

"I married once to make someone else happy. I was satisfied that I was doing the right thing, but it didn't make me happy. Not a single day. Now I work at the ER, and I know I'm doing some good. I find that satisfying. I have a sexual relationship with a good man, and that too satisfies me. But I'm not happy, House. I haven't been happy in a long time."

"Happiness is a jumble of chemicals in your brain. It's not worth the pain or the humiliation."

"You think I'm a glutton for punishment? I'm not. I'm a glutton for happiness. I have tasted a little of it, and now I want more. The rest doesn't matter. I've learned that you can only humiliate me if I allow you to, and I won't." I think of all the times in the last few days when my well-aimed barbs have fallen short of the target, banished by her calm little smiles. She glides out of the booth and sits beside me. "The question is whether I can make you happy. Whether you are willing to take whatever pain is in store in exchange for whatever happiness I can give you."

The concept of happiness became a foreign language to me a long time ago. I am about to tell her so when she brushes her fingertip against my upper lip, tracing the silhouette of my mouth. For this old atheist, it feels like a benediction.

She kissed me once, in my office, under false pretenses. Now, it is I who skim her face with my hands, bringing her mouth closer to mine until finally I am kissing her, tasting her without hesitancy. Her softly curving lips call up some forgotten feeling of tenderness. I am sixteen years old. I am wiped clean of everything except gratitude and wonder.

This is it. This is what happy feels like.


End file.
